Exactly How Bad Is It?

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  • Posted By: AmericanLu @ 10/17/2008 10:15:38 AM

    I believe the Republicans enter the numbers they want to appear on Bushes final record. So far there has been no conscience shown by the administration for all the finacial losses ,wrong doings and criminal activity. They all pretend it didn't happen . That is an easier way out of taking full responsibility. Every word they say needs to be recorded and everey move they make needs to be analysed closely by the media and reports need to get to us before the decisions are made. I know Fox knows before others what is going on ;also Cspan. Why is that ? America needs to know the truth so we won't starve to death. Sorry we just gave the money needed to help the richest in the world and we poor Americans don't even know why or what it is going for today because the richest are still eating high on the hog and still making fun of the American middle class and poor.

  • Posted By: nannynell @ 10/17/2008 9:57:03 AM

    The United States did quite well without taxes until we engaged in our first war,the govenment then told people to pay taxes to help and after the war we would no longer have to pay these taxes! It never ceased,but our roads were taken care of ,schools were better , postal was much better etc. So I say we can do without taxes without representation.The american people cannot survive with a huge amount of taxes coming out of thier paychceck.,we are hanging on by a thread.

  • Posted By: RO in Reno @ 10/16/2008 8:03:56 PM

    I thought the slam on Jimmy Carter was in VERY bad taste, and I am surprised to see such a comment in what I regard as one of the best MSM magazines in America.
    For your information Jimmy Carter left a deficit that is barely 10% of what we have with the current Administration and was a fraction of what Regan left us with as well.
    Carter reduced our dependence on foreign oil by 50% and was awarded the Noble Peace price for brokering the treaty between Israel and Egypt.
    Carter got stuck with the economic chaos left by Nixon, just as the next President will be left with Bush's disastrous mess.

    • Posted By: lcbyrne24 @ 10/17/2008 9:41:45 AM

      RO in Reno, the salm was not from the reporter, but was a quote from Ronald Reagan.

  • Posted By: newsviews @ 10/17/2008 9:05:16 AM

    In reference to the comment below by lingram "In case you don't realize it, if you make over $26,000 as a single person or over $32,000 as a couple you social security is taxed as income." Remember, this is the same money you were obligated to pay into the system, and upon which you already paid taxes. Even if you itemize, you can't deduct this money on your tax return. In essence, you are taxed on money ALREADY TAXED when it was earned. This is one example of how politicans can change the rules so you don't notice until it bites you in the ***.

  • Posted By: rpcrocker1 @ 10/17/2008 3:49:36 AM

    I have to agree that now is not the time for higher taxes, and Obama will bring higher taxes. I have examined both tax reform plans and truly feel that McCains plan will be best for this country at this time. I'm not an expert in the field, but I am educated somewhat in economics. In most cases, government intervention brings about government failure. Market failure is one thing but when government officials get in the mix, it usually get worse.

    Russell P. Crocker BS/BA.HRM.MGMT

    • Posted By: april418 @ 10/17/2008 8:59:35 AM

      Taxes must be rasied. Where do you think our roads, schools and so on get done and paid for. Doesn't matter who gets in the office taxes will be raised. Just depends on who hides the fact that they are being raised is the question. It takes the congress and president to raise the taxes. So people should look at the WHOLE picture here not just the president. If you want change start at home.

    • Posted By: lingram @ 10/17/2008 8:03:12 AM

      I don't care who is elected. Taxes are going to be raised. Where do you think the government gets its money from people? Republicans raise taxes too, they are just better at hiding them. (like taxing your health benefit) Republicans also like to borrow money from other countries like China which is why we owe China our butts. If you look at Reagen's years, you will see he had to raise taxes too after he kept lowering taxes (for some) and kept borrowing money from others. Why do you think our Soc. Sec. is in such a mess. Social Security is not contributed to by the government. Employees, Employers and the self employed pay into social security. It would be fine if the government didn't tap into what's not theres to begin with. Reagen is the one who started taxing soc. sec. as unearned income. In case you don't realize it, if you make over $26,000 as a single person or over $32,000 as a couple you social security is taxes as unearned income. Obama will raise that amount to $50,000 which is still not fair but better.

  • Posted By: CouldCareLessAnymore @ 10/17/2008 8:54:36 AM

    Reagan is more useful now as fertilizer...

  • Posted By: rgabel25 @ 10/16/2008 9:37:29 PM

    A recession is not hard to figure out. On my street there our 5 houses that our empty and have been for over two years. Some have been foreclosed on and others our for sale. I live in a middle class neighborhood in Dearborn Hts, MI. One of my sons was out of work for eight months the other son is laid off and is working for half the salary he was making a year ago. When you live in the real world it's not hard to figure out.

    • Posted By: Lubbock @ 10/17/2008 7:32:57 AM

      AMEN; and our congressmen will not feel any of the pain they have inflicted on our country
      Both sides of the isle are addicted to pork and spending

  • Posted By: Lubbock @ 10/17/2008 7:28:02 AM

    I think we should give all the lifer congressional monetary terrorists called congressmen a raise for getting us into the 10 TRILLION debt and their solution; print more money and more socialism

  • Posted By: rab015 @ 10/17/2008 6:13:58 AM

    Thank god Obama plans on raising taxes during a recession...Maybe we can buy some more banks.

  • Posted By: NickKnight1944 @ 10/17/2008 4:03:10 AM

    You say Regan, I say Reagan, you say Recession, I say Depression, Regan, Reagan, Recession, Depression, let's call the whole thing off!!

  • Posted By: NickKnight1944 @ 10/17/2008 4:02:04 AM

    You say Reegan, I say Reagan, you say recession, I say depression, Reegan, Reagan, recession, depression, let's call the whole thing off!

  • Posted By: 0r0b0r0s @ 10/17/2008 2:53:32 AM

    I'm about fed up to the gills with that same old youtube clip you neocons keep posting everywhere you can like it was somehow the smoking gun that proves once and for all that the democrats are to blame for everything and McCain is just this poorly understood good guy all alone against the world. That videotape proves nothing at all and I'll tell you why: while it is true that Democrats have been overly defensive of FM & FM, the truth is that BOTH SIDES have been playing partisan politics with the issue of regulation for years with neither side being willing to subject its own *sacred cows* to the same scrutiny as those of the opposite side. So the Republicans have been eagerer and willing to slap FM & FM with regulation controls but unwilling to apply the same scrutiny anywhere else. And this simply doesn't work. This boring old videotaped hype proves nothing because it is only addressing one tiny little slice of the whole picture and even though most Democrats are perfectly willing to admit error on that one, the bottom line is that FM & FM are simply not the root cause of the problems we are looking at now.

    You people really need to change your script a little every now and then or at least make some effort to keep up with the bigger picture. It is this elitest narrow blame-game thinking that has created this whole mess to begin with.

  • Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/17/2008 1:42:57 AM

    Whether McCain won or lost is not relevant. He succeeded in the first half hour to plant the seeds of a Reagan style wipeout. Reputable historians and economists overwhelmingly agree that the taxation imposed by and the "stimulus" spending and public works programs of FDR actually deepened and prolonged the Great Depression. See e.g. http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx. It was the production demands of WWII that got the economy going again. And when the war was over, the economy promptly went into recession.

    Point is, Obama's programs are tax and spend, and it does not really matter who he taxes, those taxes are going to be passed through the economy. Any first year economics student knows that taxation is a tool used to contract an economy experiencing inflation, because it reduces demand by reducing the amount of money individuals and businesses have to spend. It is contractionary, which is exactly what you do not want to do when the problem is that the economy is contracting already into recession. Like FDR, Obama's plans will only make it worse for longer.

    Similarly, who "Joe the plumber" is is not the issue. The issue is what Obama's comments to him revealed. In the exchange with "Joe the plumber" we find out that Obama really is as radical as his early political acquaintances, and that he is into the failed economic policy of wealth redistribution. Obama's tax and spending plans alone would be bad enough, but add Reid and Pelosi to the mix, with the three of them controlling both houses of Congress and the executive without and effective restraint, and you have something that should be something that causes concern even among moderate Democrats. Don't think so? Watch and listen to a C-SPAN video clip of the Congressional hearings at roughly the time McCain's attempt at S.190. to fix fannie and freddie.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

  • Posted By: Nins @ 10/16/2008 10:31:25 PM

    Jim Johnson, no matter how many times people tell you that Obama is against socialism, you keep posting these blogs that accuse Obama of socialism and communism. It is not true and you know it. You are just trying to smear Obama and make people afraid.

    In his book Audacity of Hope, Obama writes at length about the FAILURE of SOCIALISM and the failure of communism. He enthusiastically states that American democracy is the greatest political system on earth. Obama is not a socialist, and he does not admire socialism.

    To you, Jim, and to all of the conservatives out there who think that Obama is a flaming liberal, I would like to remind you of what he did when he was elected President of the Harvard Law Review. The Law Review President gets to name ten individuals to write articles for the Review, and these ten people also get to control the content of the publication. All of the minorities and the liberals thought they finally had it made, that Obama would appoint ten left wing editors. Instead, Obama appointed three conservatives, three liberals and four moderates. That year the Law Review was critically acclaimed as the best run and best written Harvard publication in decades.

    So when he wins in November, conservatives don't have to freak out. Obama is a centrist and will appoint a balanced cabinet full of active people who will really get things done. Kind of like the way our multi-cultural society is supposed to be. And exactly what we need in this time of economic crisis.

  • Posted By: cani77 @ 10/16/2008 9:58:57 PM

    THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
    I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
    He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
    is terrifying.He thinks it will be worse then the great depression.
    The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
    The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
    the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
    McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
    That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand how its been broken.
    It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum mathematical models very few people understand.
    Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.
    Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
    Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
    No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He was the last to know somthing was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
    It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
    even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
    If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
    When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
    So why are the polls even close then ?
    Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
    which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
    They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
    Let's teach him we are smarter than that
    Stand up and hold them accountable
    Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
    Elect Obama Biden 2008






    Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ

  • Posted By: cani77 @ 10/16/2008 9:58:48 PM

    THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
    I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
    He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
    is terrifying.He thinks it will be worse then the great depression.
    The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
    The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
    the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
    McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
    That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand how its been broken.
    It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum mathematical models very few people understand.
    Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.
    Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
    Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
    No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He was the last to know somthing was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
    It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
    even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
    If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
    When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
    So why are the polls even close then ?
    Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
    which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
    They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
    Let's teach him we are smarter than that
    Stand up and hold them accountable
    Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
    Elect Obama Biden 2008






    Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ

  • Posted By: cani77 @ 10/16/2008 9:58:37 PM

    THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
    I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
    He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
    is terrifying.He thinks it will be worse then the great depression.
    The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
    The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
    the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
    McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
    That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand how its been broken.
    It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum mathematical models very few people understand.
    Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.
    Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
    Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
    No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He was the last to know somthing was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
    It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
    even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
    If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
    When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
    So why are the polls even close then ?
    Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
    which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
    They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
    Let's teach him we are smarter than that
    Stand up and hold them accountable
    Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
    Elect Obama Biden 2008






    Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ

  • Posted By: ploughman @ 10/16/2008 8:47:52 PM

    Maybe it's telling about the McCain supporters, but they should remember that you need to be at least 45 or so to remember Carter, and it's younger voters who will turn an Obama win into an Obama landslide. Those voters do remember Bill Clinton, though, and Obama's economic plan is quite similar to Clinton's in 1993. It has a top-heavy tax increase that basically restores the Clinton rates (from all the shouting you'd think they were proposing a 100% rate!), and middle-class cuts that'll probably have to be scaled down. It's an important step toward restoring pay-as-you-go and keeping us from mortgaging our future to China. We'll hear the same dire projections about how cutting off the tax cuts at the top will wreck the economy, and, as in 1993, they won't happen. Help the bottom and the top will do just fine. Help the top most of the money won't trickle down, as these past 8 years have amply shown. Reason: There are plenty of other places to put money BESIDES job-creating investments (hedge funds, t-bills, outsourcing, overseas markets, Swiss bank accounts, and a whole array of others). Obama could do targeted tax cuts for those who really do/did create jobs, after the fact, and get more bang than Bush for a lot fewer bucks. Reward people who do what they say, not those who say they want to create jobs but then put tax-cut money into whatever the latest bubble is.

    • Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/16/2008 9:33:59 PM

      Perhaps the they remember that the Clinton Presidency also ended in a recession.

      • Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/16/2008 9:37:14 PM

        Those who forget their history, etc., etc.

  • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 10/16/2008 8:53:39 PM

    Recession and depression, like many general descriptive terms, are context sensitive. You can't use them for exact definitions across the board because each one can be used to measure different things with different threshhold levels, under different circumstances. So you can't use these terms to determine exactly how bad things are because the terms are inexact in themselves. I recall reading somewhere about a year ago that one measure of recession is a stock market dip of 20% below peak, and depression as 30% below peak (depending on the indicator or choice, of course). A dip of 10% is a correction on this scale. Using the Dow industrials, down 40% from peak, we are well into a depression.

    Now as far as how bad exactly things are, we have a multitude of indicators, for a multitude of purposes, to say with whatever degree of precision you choose, to tell you how bad whatever thing you wish to measure really is. Choose your purpose and indicator to suit your wants or needs.;

  • Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/16/2008 8:06:45 PM

    Baby I'll be there to take your hand,
    Baby I'll be there to share the land
    That they'll be giving away, when we all live together.

    So, in the exchange with Joe the plumber we find out that Obama really is as radical as his early political acquaintances, and is into the failed economic policy of wealth redistribution. Yahoo, back to the 70's we go! So now we know that an Obama presidency really would be as if it were Carter's lost second term after all.

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